The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution

“The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution”, written by Arnold Toynbee, is an argumentative essay which purpose is clarifying the entire process of the historical event and its consequences.

It is organized into nine paragraphs plus an introduction which is a declaration of intensions that explains better the reader the content of the text.

The first paragraph is an informative argumentation. It explains the reader the essence of the Industrial Revolution that led to growth of two new systems of thought: Economic Science and Socialism.

Both the first and the second paragraph deal with the development of Economic Science by reporting the chief landmarks, each one related to the most important English economists.

The publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation, Malthus’ Essay on Population, Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy gave the society the tools to manage with the ways of production and distribution of wealth.

The third paragraph is an evaluative argumentation. It reports data  of the growth of population after the Industrial Revolution and the decline in the agricultural population.

The fourth paragraph’s purpose is to explain better the reader the causes of the decrease in rural population which caused an agrarian revolution.

The three most effective causes were: the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common and waste lands and the consolidation of small farms into large.

The writer provides the reader with information to explain better the revolution of the agricultural system.

The fifth paragraph deals with the new scientific approach to cultivation based on  the extension of arable cultivation, tillage of inferior soils, rotation of crops and the growth of an agricultural society and it explains how the use of this system made the difference.

Meanwhile, both the iron and the manufacture industries developed because of new inventions.

Equally the six and the seven paragraph clarify how those inventions came into use and how trade increased year after year.  

In particular the seventh paragraph analyses the improvement of means of communication and its impact on trade.

In paragraph eight the writer reports information about the enormous rise in rents caused by the new system of production and distribution of wealth.

The enclosure system, the consolidation of farms and the high price of corns caused transformations in the political system and in the social classes.

Paragraph nine reports data about the birth of two new social classes: the great capitalist employers (who gained fortunes but took little part at work) and the labourers (who gained just a little money but worked hard). This injustice led to a social revolution.

In the last paragraph, the writer points out clearly that “free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being” in order to make the reader understand that society need legislation to prevent social, economical and political crisis.